


The Firebringer

by Raspberry_hallucination



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Adult Azymondias, Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, F/M, Inaccurate Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Promethean Rayla
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 01:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20219620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raspberry_hallucination/pseuds/Raspberry_hallucination
Summary: Rayla has been chained to the rock for almost as long as she can remember. Her only company is the great dragon who appears with the moon. Now, though, two others join her, brothers climbing to her open prison. Nervous at the height, and afraid of her alien appearance, they still sit beside her, providing her company through the blistering sun. The elder asks her why she is there, and with a voice coarsened from years of disuse, the bringer of fire begins her tale.- A short AU based loosely on the story of prometheus.





	1. The climb to the peak

**Author's Note:**

> Written For the TDP Big Bang, which I had great fun participating in!

There were people below her.

This wasn’t very strange. She had seen figures moving through the passes in the valley below with increased frequency for a while now. The great green valley stretched under her, bisected by a slow and winding river, its smaller tributaries spreading out as branches from a mighty oak. With such a fertile land, with the verdant forests drinking the sunlight and soil, it would be inevitable that humans would eventually find her great prison. How long since they had started appearing, she couldn’t say - she had lost her sense of time what felt like a millennium ago. But a few travelers moving along the passes that separated her peak from the surrounding mountains had almost become normal for her.

These ones, however, were moving quickly, erratically climbing the steeper slopes around the forested foothills on the edge of the great mountain. They zig-zagged around, backtracking and pausing sporadically, looking for all the world like the ants that scurried around the base of her rock. The pair dipped in and out of sight as they darted between the light tree cover amid the scrag, slowly making their way up the slope of her mountain.

She entertained herself a while watching them, drawing her thoughts away from the heat of the sun and the burning stone at her back. why were they running, she wondered. were they criminals running from the law, or maybe bandits getting into position to attack their next target. Perhaps they were new lovers, trying to find privacy from the rest of their kind. They were too far for her to see any details, merely two tiny black specks moving against the rich green earth. They paused again by a small river that cut across the forest, an open ribbon carrying life and beauty with it as it cut its winding path across the foothills and out of her vision. She stopped watching then, casting her eyes instead to the open heavens and the few, fluffy clouds floating within, sheep grazing amongst the blue pastures of the sky.

Should she call to them? Would they hear her? Perhaps they would hear, and help, and she could be free. No, impossible. They were closer to her than any others she remembered seeing, but still far too distant to hear. And what would she even do with freedom anyway? She wouldn’t be allowed to return to Xadia, and the rest of her family was dead. No, she decided at last. better to leave them be, and ignore her flickering of hope.

There! behind them, a third speck. Instantly the two took off again, cutting across the pale blue thread and further up her mountain, darting once more into the cover of the trees. A few birds rose up from the forest with the disturbance, their distant calls barely reaching her ears. The third stopped where the pair had been, and by the time it crossed the river, the other two had already disappeared.

The pair had passed from her sight now, disappeared into the forest under the slope of the mountain she was chained atop. She contented herself with watching the third figure, who skirted the edge of the forest. It busied around where the two had been, darting between the spot near the river and the treeline beyond. In time, she could smell the smoke, and see the flame, a glimmering pinprick of light near the pale blue stream, then moved back down the mountain at a lightning pace. Not a hunter, then. A friend perhaps, ditched by their peers, or perhaps a chaperone, returning home to report their charges missing and arrange a search. It would explain the marker fire, at least.

She watched the last of them make it way home, as the birds disturbed by the fires and the noise found their way back to their nests. A few landed on the grey stone plateau on which her rock rested, and calmed themselves by playing around idly in the dust and flat rock around her. They lacked any fear of her; she had been there long before their births, and she was just an unusual bird to them. She watched as one of them, a grey winged jay, landed next to her. It preened itself, scratching its wings against her horns and smoothing them down, a ritual to clear its feathers of smoke and shame. She smiled at the bold little thing, and it chirped back, its eyes bright and curious. As the birds calmed and took their leave, she followed them with her eyes, watching their small bodies escape into the open air.

The sun had well passed its zenith, and the small figure long gone, When she heard the voices disturbing the wildlife beneath her. They drifted up to her from just below the steep cliff beyond her feet.

"I think we’ve lost him. He would’ve caught us by now otherwise"

"Should we really have run from Corvus, Callum? he was only trying to help." A second voice, younger and more cheerful, spoke up.

A sigh.

"I know Ez, but he’s been guarding us all week. doesn’t it feel nice not to have him following us for once?" "I guess. It still feels mean." "Don’t worry, I’ll apologise later. Look at the view from here!"

"Look - that’s the castle over there! It looks so small from up here." The boy laughs, and she craned her head, trying to catch site of any such building. Try as she might, she couldn’t find anything. Perhaps it was too close, blocked by the cliff? More likely the stone she was chained to just blocked it from her sight, as it blocked half of the horizon, all behind her forever barred from her sight and reach.

Those beneath her fell silent for a while, and she held her breath, uncertain as to what to do, whether to call out, to beg their aid. How would they react, she wondered, to finding an alien o chained to a mountain? So lost in thought she was, she barely registered the presence on the cliff, the flash of yellow before her.  
A large toad, spotted yellow and blue, hopped up from the grey cliff edge, into her line of view. It looked at her askance, turning a slight shade of purple, then hopped back to the rocky edge and ribbited down at something below.

"Bait? what are you doing?"

"How’d he get up there?"

"I think he’s nervous. Hang on Bait, we’re coming!"

"Ezran, wait for me! Dad’ll be mad if you get hurt."

She stayed silent, paralysed by shock as the soft grunts of exertion and calls for the frog, ’Bait’ came ever closer. She could barely remember the last time she was this close to a person, even if they were still beyond her sight. The toad, seeming to overcome it’s initial fear, had hopped closer to her, and she followed it with her eyes warily. Was it dangerous? aggressive?. It sniffed at her boot, and her eyes snapped to the odd being. She was so fixated on it that she only looked back up when she heard the gasps.  
The heads of two boys looked back, poking over the cliff edge. Their mouths were agape in shock.

They stared at her, and she stared back, none of them capable of breaking the silence. The older of the two, a pale faced teen with a mass of brown hair and narrowed green eyes, slowly began edging towards his brother. She had to speak now, or lose the opportunity.

"Hi" She managed, voice cracked from disuse.

"Ezran." The older said, not looking away from her. "Grab bait, and run"

"Bait! Here boy!" the younger called, a younger boy, with dark skin and a soft, rounded face. His large blue eyes lit up as the toad begrudgingly turned from its discovery, and hopped away from her and onto his keeper’s head. It clung on as the boy, Ezran, disappeared back down the cliff.

It was only when the older also began disappearing that she found her voice.

"Wait! Don’t go, please! Come back!"

But they ignored her, and her words fell on empty air as she watched them disappear from sight, reemerging only as a pair of black specks scrambling down the mountain, away from her isolation and towards the pass from which they came.


	2. Isolation with Company

It was funny how much worse monotony could become after a taste of change. She’d grown used to the rock at her back, hard and unyielding granite, along with the cramps that came with it. Now though, they returned in force as the tide of hope receded. Her shoulders felt stiff and heavy, reminding her how trapped she truly was, and her tongue felt like sand in her mouth.

Beyond her perch, it had started to rain. she heard distantly the sounds of the rain hitting the forests below, and the clouds above them, heavy with the weight of life. She watched it hit the trees, watched the tiny figures in the pass below speed up, watched the rivers as they swelled to the beat of the rushing water joining them from the slopes. For the first time in an age, she wished it would rain above her.

But Aaravos had been too cruel for that. The sensation of rain, of water, of something beyond the heat of the sun and the scraping shackles was a luxury she was not given. All she could do was watch, as the lord of the heavens taunted her with that she could never have. the clouds broke above her perch, and around the sun, forever subjecting her to it’s glare. The winds swarmed around her cliff, and no water passed the barrier of the grey rock. Even the few insects who made her prison their home left her, beetles and spiders rushing down to the rain and the prey that fled their homes in the downpour.

A muffled, dim crash sounded off the hills, and a section of a far off hill settled into the valley. The valley was vast, bracketed on almost visible sides by steep mountain faces and the gentler foothills before them. Only on the edges of her vision could she see any breaks in the peaks, two passes through the range and into the lowland below. It felt like even her mountain was isolated from its peers. Perhaps there were other mountains behind her? There had to be, else humans would have found the valley long ago. Knowing of their presence didn’t make her feel any less alone, though.

She focused instead on the mudslides, and the scars they had etched across the valley. a long, thin streak of brown against the hills, smearing down and slowly fading into the native colours of the valley below. The great river slowly turned a light brown as its tributaries delivered the rich slurry into its banks, reminding her of nothing less than the thick mushroom ambrosia she used to drink. She blinked once, and again, as she fought against the stinging in her eyes. She knew, she reminded herself. She knew what she was doing, and that she would be punished. And besides, this valley was beautiful. She wouldn’t mind living here. If only she weren’t so alone. If only she could talk to someone, she’d know her punishment was worth it, she was sure.

The siblings who had come before had seemed nice enough. They obviously cared for each other. Could she blame them, even, for running? She would have done the same on seeing a horned alien creature on a mountain. Those boys did not deserve her blame. Still, knowing that didn’t stop the freezing loneliness.

Darkness crept over her thoughts and the horizon, as the sun fell from the sky. The light passed from her face, and she could finally breathe comfortably again, free from the cloying heat. She had always preferred the night, and the moon’s cool face. The stars dotted sky, diamonds in a sea of velvet, and her eyes drifted across the constellations. Perhaps it was her imagination, but they almost seemed to have moved while she was stuck on her prison. The golden hounds still jumped across the sky, but at times it almost seemed as if he had been joined by a flying eagle. And was that a hunter, resting amidst a sea of stars?

Why were the heavens changing, she wondered. What manner of creature could inspire the gods to move the very heavens, and reshape the world? She pondered these questions as the cool winds of night soothed aching muscles.Here, In the darkness of night, she could almost imagine herself invisible, disappeared into the mountain and merely a part of the rock, watching the sky and the stars as they danced their tales across the sky. Hunters disappeared between clouds, lions wrestled with heroes and bulls stampeded eternally in her sight, playing out their tales on the grandest stage.

A shadow passed over the moon, and the faint sound of beating wings reached her ears. A creature was approaching, beating its slow meandering path toward her from one of the tall, craggy peaks on the other side of the valley. She should be used to this, should be used to her nightly meeting with the great beast. It felt worse now, knowing that this torture did not have to be her only experience of the days. The great blue dragon landed before her with a soft thud, the creature struggling to fit its entire body upon the small plateau. It steadied itself on its front legs, then slowly worked its way onto its four feet and folded in its wings.

"Hey, little dragon." the great beast slowly lowered its head to her, carefully avoiding bludgeoning her with its horns. It ruffled its mane, masses of blue hair shaking and moving. As she squirmed to avoid the scratching hair that brushed against her face, it looked up with large, sad, eyes.

"I know you don’t want to do it, little fella."

The creature reared back, slowly, hesitantly. It paused once again, watching her.

"Oh get it over with. It’ll hurt more if it’s slow"

The great beast, far larger than Rayla and the rock she was bound to, majestic in its size and bearing, hunched in on itself and awkwardly shuffled to her right. Positioning its head besides her side, it hesitated for a single second, looking up once with a single blue eye. Then it struck, and she screamed. The pain was unbearable, no less painful for how many times she had endured it. It set her body on fire, and the shock of it left her mind blank, filled with nothing but the white haze of pain. She gasped in despair, fighting for some semblance of breath, and then the teeth dug deeper. Her limbs stung and disappeared, her mind consumed by ripping teeth and the wall of shock. The beast pulled its head back, and her side ripped away within its mouth. The air, before a cool breeze, now battered her wound and was the final blow that shattered her mind apart. Dimly, as the screams slowed to a dizzying static, she watched the beast, hunched in on itself with its head low, slowly drop from the cliff and return to the heavens, glancing back periodically. She gave it little attention as she fought to regain her breath. The last thing she noticed before losing consciousness was the gaping wound at her side, from which her blood and her thoughts escaped from her, and she fell to oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I just couldn't find it in me to make the last part more descriptive.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always loved, whether they're positive affirmation or mythology enthusiasts trying to burn me at the stake for my sins!


End file.
